Review #21: Pitch Perfect

Release Date: September 28th, 2012
Writer: Kay Cannon, Mickey Rapkin (Novel)
Director: Jason Moore

Logline: Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in a campus competition. (Source IMDb).
Music, Comedy, 112 min.
Bechdel Test: Laughably passes. Easiest pass yet. Look at all those ladies on that poster. The guy's probably wouldn't pass if they didn't talk about magic and John Mayer so much.

Review

Pitch Perfect is one of my favorite movies from this past year. It doesn't hurt that my bloggess Alyssa and I saw it in theaters with our blogsister Keels and we mega-bonded over it.

From a technical point of view, Pitch Perfect has a lot of great things going for it. It was extremely well written, with many in-depth characters, many storylines, and great characterization. Kay Cannon has a well trained sense of comedy where almost every sentimental moment is immediately undercut by a brutally funny joke. This is something that takes Pitch Perfect out of the twee-ville romanticism that it straddles into and straight up brilliant comedy. This was also one of the first movies I can remember reviewing where I don't have to say they should have edited out 30 minutes. These editors on this deserve Oscars for editing such a tight, perfectly paced story. Of course, we are talking about a movie where a bunch of girls try to win an a cappella singing competition. It’s not like it has the twists and turns of Inception. This is a straight forward a+b=c type movie. But that doesn't mean it’s all a throwaway. It’s still extremely well made, in my opinion.

Let’s just talk about this cast for a minute.

Rebel Wilson’s character, Fat Amy, would have been played really dumpy and depressing by anyone else. With Rebel's authentic Australian accent, whip smart one liners, and the girl power attitude of making her hot and with a harem of boyfriends in the pool, she became Rebel's iconic character. When people see Rebel Wilson in a movie, they want her to be Fat Amy.

Pitch Perfect also changed Anna Kendrick’s career with a single song. No, I'm not talking about "Cups". I’m talking about the 17 year old #1 hit "No Diggity". The moment she busted out Blackstreet in the trailer was the moment this became a movie worth seeing. That song changed it from being Glee: The Movie to it’s own fresh entity. This movie was going to go full prep and under cut it with some street cred.

Speaking of street cred, whoever cast Adam Devine is brilliant. Pulling someone like Adam Devine of Workaholics fame in a movie that could easily be overly preppy, and gives this film an edge. I’m crazy impressed that he sings and dances and keeps up, since this is the age of “we'll cut around that.” He’s also hysterically funny having some memorable moments sparring with Rebel.

We also need to talk about Ester Dean playing Cynthia Rose for a minute. This is the first movie she’s acted in, because by trade she’s a songwriter. Selena Gomez “Come and Get It”, Beyonce “Countdown”, Kelly Clarkson “Mr. Know It All”, Katy Perry “Firework” All Ester Dean songs. Even more impressive, she sings her own song in the movie. During the riff off Cynthia Rose and Stacie bust out “S&M” by Rihanna, except… That’s a song Ester Dean wrote for Rihanna. So yeah, she kills it. Everyone killed it.

To wrap this thing up, there's a lot I love about this film if that's not plainly obviously already. It's packed with side splitting comedy, a lot of really charming characters, and none of the songs are particularly grating. It's going down in movie history with Mean Girls and Clueless as being one of those movies that embraces our culture but represents it in a timeless way. It's an all time fav.


Portrayal of Women: Let’s also talk about the fact that even though Fat Amy makes and takes a lot of jokes about her weight and appearance, Cynthia Rose does not. Nobody else on the team does. They are women of all shapes, sizes, and appearances and they all are able to contribute equally as a team. Sure the skinny white ladies might have been up front, but it’s nice to see diversity that simply exists without having to be called out. Everyone has flaws, everyone has quirks, and thats how it should be.

Sisterhood Moment: Probably that time I cried during the finals. Shhh.


Rating: All 5 members of The Breakfest Club out of 5.



IMDb - Pitch Perfect (7.3)
Wikipedia - Pitch Perfect
Rotten Tomatoes - Pitch Perfect (81%)

Review #15: Frozen

Frozen

Release Date: November 27th, 2013
Writer: Jennifer Lee
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee

Logline: Fearless optimist Anna teams up with Kristoff in an epic journey, encountering Everest-like conditions, and a hilarious snowman named Olaf in a race to find Anna's sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter. (Source IMDb)
Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Musical. 102 min.
Bechdel Test: Passed all 3 tests.

Review
I was the default reviewer of Disney's Frozen because Alyssa hates animated movies and I tend to really like them. Sadly, this is another big miss from Disney.

Frozen is a disjointed collection of unfinished pieces of a movie that don't come together. At its core is a movie about sisters who have been divided by differences. A nice idea. Let's see where it falls apart.

The movie opens with a musical tribute to CGI ice. This has almost nothing to do with the movie. In fact, it confused me on the first watch because I assumed it meant the city was already in a frozen wonderland. It was not. Then after the random musical ice number is the introduction of the two sisters, Elsa and Anna, who are the lead characters. For reasons not explained, one of them has magical ice powers. Come on, Disney. You couldn't come up with an evil witch, a curse from birth, a prophecy, nothing? Elsa just has powers and the audience needs to go with it. Then Elsa tries to hide her powers from the world, and she becomes a recluse because she is afraid of hurting people. So she hurts people. To avoid hurting people. Anna sings a medley "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", further reinforcing the initial belief I had that the city was in a frozen wonderland. But it wasn't yet, it took 30 minutes in before Elsa accidentally casts a spell sending the city into a frozen wonderland. I think it's pretty clear that by that point I didn't care.

Do you see why I dislike Frozen? I get that this is a kids movie, but when the standard for comparison is Shrek, Finding Nemo, Up, The Incredibles, and How to Train Your Dragon, the expectation of a quality story is high. Like other Disney films, this was destined to be successful with kids because it's got those essential elements - the same beautiful animation of Tangled, a big imaginative setting, and a stunning broadway singer (Adele Dazeem). The major story problems though are unforgivable. It becomes generic and forgettable.

I think the biggest failing of the story is not having a straightforward central conflict. That doesn't necessarily mean an enemy, like what The Snow Queen originally was. Many of the movies I named previously don't have a big bad, they just have a central conflict usually around their unusual qualities being rejected by society. Elsa is fearful and isolates herself, but she totally embraces her powers. She makes herself a kickass ice castle and gives herself a makeover. The whole "uncontrollable powers" thing is gone, and with it goes her fear of her powers. The stakes are even further removed at this point because we are lead to believe there is some terrible collateral damage because the town is now in a frozen wonderland. However, without any characters who live in this town or even show why that's a bad thing, this curse has no effect at all. At least Josh Gad's snowman sidekick character shows up, to distract the audience.

I'm just going to skip right to the ending - Spoiler alert? Lets be honest, the plot is about as complicated as a peanut butter and jelly recipe. Sandwich spoilers: it's peanut butter. And jelly.

The movie ends with Elsa getting "saved" by Anna choosing to save Elsa or some nonsense. Love was the key all along! Once again, this makes no sense. Here's why: Elsa choose to flee the city from fear of hurting her loved ones, meaning she loves these people so much she sacrifices herself. Then she choose to make an amazing ice palace, which shows she had precise control over her powers. So what was the part she was missing? She had control, and she had love. Or is this about Anna? It can't be. Anna loved her sister at the beginning, and loved her sister when she scaled a mountain to go visit her, and loved her sister at the end when she sacrificed herself. Can someone explain this to me? Did she have to feel regret to "heal" Anna? Because she felt that at the beginning when she hurt her the first time. This whole love-saves-the-day thing is a deus ex machina in disguise. This ending is so contrived it negates almost everything that previously happened. If love is how Elsa learned to control her powers, then she should have been able to control them at the very beginning when she hurt Anna the first time and was so distressed over hurting her sister that she sacrificed her whole livelihood to stop it from happening again. In fact, I'm not sure any conflict is even resolved in the end. Elsa's powers are still bizarrely unexplained, and the town only accepts her witchcraft after she unfreezes them and puts on a show. Bread and circuses, I guess?

If I were to ignore the plot holes, I still have a problem with the fact that the movie feels like it's all setup with no payoff. The climactic ending feels like the halfway point to most movies because that's the first time the characters became convicted in their goals. It's the first time stakes seem to be relevant. It was an incredibly long movie for such little payoff. It all left a bad taste in my mouth.


But hey, there's an Arrested Development shout out. I guess that's cool?

Portrayal of Women:
One of the sisters is introduced as being only interested in being swept off her feet by a man. Then she gets swept off her feet by a man. Then she gets swept off her feet by another man.

The other sister is bitter and jaded from the expectations of her as future Queen.

I mean. I don't even know what to say about that. At least Rapunzel in Tangled had a myriad of interests and hobbies, she was driven to discover her family, her own person, and was willing to defend herself. Rapunzel was a character who lived in the world and was shaped by it, not just a cliche damsel in distress. I can't say the same about the women in Frozen.

It's nice that they love each other as sisters, but neither one is a quality character.
Oh and they both looooove chocolate. Sorry Disney, this is a big miss.

Sisterhood Moment:
You know, it's super disappointing that in a movie about the love of sisters, I can't think of a really great moment I loved with the two of them. Their relationship was generic and uninspired.

When Elsa is totally isolated and uses the power of song to build a castle, plus a new ice-outfit. Maybe it's real clothes, who knows. If I was locked in a castle, you better believe I'd be wearing a cape, too.

Oh and Disney, just because you made the Princess and the Frog doesn't mean you've met your diversity quota. This movie was whiter than snow.

Rating: 2 out of 5 annoying kindergartners.

IMDb - Frozen (8.0)
Wikipedia - Frozen
Rotten Tomatoes - Frozen (89%)